This is a collection of news about border issues, particularly those seen from Arizona and regarding the right to keep and bear arms. Sources often include Mexican media. It's often interesting to see how different the view is from the south.
If you have comments or questions drop a line to (the name of this blog)(a)knoxcomm.com

The case began with a bombshell: A confidential source had witnessed a Maricopa County sheriff's deputy snorting lines of cocaine at a home near 69th Avenue and Van Buren Street in the summer of 2010.

As if that weren't bad enough, the informant told investigators that he heard Alfredo Navarrette, a member of Sheriff Joe Arpaio's human- smuggling unit, bragging about how he escorted cars and trucks carrying drugs or money to "make sure they would get to their destinations safely."

Within six months of the report of Navarrette snorting cocaine, investigators got court approval to tap the deputy's cellphone.

Less than a year later, Navarrette, two Maricopa County sheriff's detention officers and 16 other defendants would be indicted amid allegations that they had roles in a drug-trafficking organization that worked with members of the Sinaloan Cartel to bring more than 5 pounds of heroin into the Valley every week.

Now, all 19 defendants have been offered plea bargains, with proposed sentences ranging from probation to "substantial prison terms" depending on each defendant's role in the organization, according to the Maricopa County Attorney's Office.

Navarrette and one of the detention officers implicated in the ring, Marcella Hernandez, no longer work for the sheriff. Silvia Najera, the third sheriff's employee indicted, was released on bond and remains on administrative leave.

Conversations investigators captured through wiretaps reveal the lengths to which the smuggling suspects went to avoid detection and the roles each of the accused sheriff's employees played.

Mitch Dooley, an attorney representing Najera, said the conversations reveal that his client played only a minor role in the ring. Dooley believes sheriff's officials were intent on arresting as many employees as possible to deflect attention from fallout Arpaio experienced in May after an internal investigation led him to fire two of his top commanders.

"I don't think there's any coincidence," Dooley said of the timing. "There's really no evidence that Sylvia Najera had anything to do with any of the people involved in this, other than knowing some of them. It seems to be guilt by association."

But investigators intercepted phone calls in April and May in which Najera, Navarrette and another suspect, Hugo Octavio Mejia, made plans to deposit $48,000 into a construction-company account that prosecutors claim was being set up to launder money on behalf of the drug traffickers.

Attorneys for Navarrette and Hernandez declined to comment.

By the time a plan had been hatched to launder the money through Mejia's company, the recorded conversations indicate, the ring's alleged leader, Francisco Arce-Torres, was getting increasingly anxious about the amount of cash flowing through his drug operation, according to the court records.

The documents allege that Navarrette's role was as something of a gofer for human- and drug-smuggling groups. Navarrette is alleged to have hidden illegal border crossers in his home until they could be smuggled to another city and to have driven empty drug-hauling vehicles to California. It's also alleged that at one point he tried to secure a submachine gun for an unidentified drug-cell member, according to court records.

Investigators captured Navarrette's attempt to buy a gun during an early March conversation with a man identified as Cisco. Cisco initially offered a sawed-off shotgun before Navarrette reminded him that "those guys (drug-cell members) won't take those kind," according to court records. The following week, Cisco phoned Navarrette offering to sell a submachine gun for $850. Records do not indicate whether the two sealed the deal.

On more than one occasion, investigators believed they had captured Arce-Torres directing drug dealers to pick up narcotics at a Surprise house that Hernandez shared with her brother, Duran Alcantar. They also heard conversations in which Arce-Torres instructed Alcantar on how to dilute drugs.

Despite those conversations, records indicate, investigators were seizing cars with the telltale signs of drug-hauling - but no drugs. That included a May traffic stop outside Gila Bend.

"Investigators have pulled over and searched three vehicles during this investigation and . . . dogs alerted to all the vehicles; however, narcotics were never found in the very thorough searches," court records state.

Ultimately, it was the raid on Arce-Torres' home that produced the most incriminating physical evidence of large-scale drug smuggling, investigators say.

During the raid on the house in the 6900 block of West Cypress Street, they reported finding more than $23,000 stashed throughout the kitchen and more than 5 pounds of heroin inside the oil pan of a red Chrysler, records state.

FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. - Officials at Fort Bragg say an investigation is under way into the disappearance of nearly 14,000 rounds of ammunition at the Army base.

Staff Sgt. Joshua Ford, a spokesman for the 82nd Airborne Division, says the ammunition went missing from the 1st Brigade Combat Team at Fort Bragg.

The Fayetteville Observer reports (http://bit.ly/rcSmoA ) that Ford believed the ammunition was taken overnight on Tuesday. The 1st Brigade team was placed on lockdown for a few hours Wednesday night while officials conducted a search.

The missing ammunition can be used in an M-4 or M-16 assault rifle.

Ford says the 82nd Airborne Division and military police are taking the matter seriously and that "any amount of ammunition that goes missing" has "got to be accounted for."